Leviticus (Lesson Ten: The Festal Year [Chapter 23])

Holiness to the Lord: A Survey of Leviticus

Lesson Ten: The Festal Year (Chapter 23)

1. The Festal Calendar

Two cycles of feasts

Feasts beginning on the first month of the ecclesiastical year, Nisan (Springtime festivals):

Passover (14th of Nisan)
Feast of Unleavened Bread (15th – 21st of Nisan)
Pentecost (6th of Sivan, 7 weeks [or fifty days] after beginning of Passover and waving of firstfruits)

Feasts of the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year and the first month of the civil year, Tishri (Autumn festivals):

Feast of Trumpets (1st of Tishri)
Day of Atonement (10th of Tishri)
Feast of Tabernacles (15th – 22nd of Tishri)

Three trips to Jerusalem, with seven “holy assemblies”

The three trips: The Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut. 16:16)

The seven holy assemblies: The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover) and its seventh (Ex. 12:16-17); Pentecost; the Feast of Trumpets (New Year’s Day); the Day of Atonement; the Feast of Tabernacles, and its octave (eighth day)

Later feasts

Purim (15th of Adar); in celebration of Esther’s victory over Haman
Hanukkah (25th of Kislev); in celebration of Judas Maccabeus’ victory over the Syrians; also called Lights (Candles) or Rededication of the Temple

2. First Cycle: Feasts of the Spring

Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread

Although technically different feasts, Passover and Unleavened Bread are closely associated. The 14th, in the evening, is Passover; the fifteenth is a “holy assembly,” the first day of Unleavened Bread; and the sixteenth is “Firstfruits,” the waving of the first sheaf of harvest, which anticipates the offering of the first ripe loaves at Pentecost; finally, the seventh and last day of the Feast is another holy assembly.

Pentecost

The Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits, looked ahead to Pentecost, which followed it by seven sevens, or on the fiftieth day afterward. On Pentecost is an offering of firstfruits, but it is a firstfruits of baked loaves made from the new wheat.

Meaning of the Feasts of the Springtime

Passover looked ahead to the true Paschal Lamb, who would be slain and whose blood would be applied to the households of his people, so that God in his punishing wrath might pass over them (Ex. 12). His people would feast upon his broken flesh, although not a bone of his would be broken (Ex. 12:46; Psalm 34:20; Jn. 19:33, 36); and this feast would give them strength to flee from the evil world, press on through the wilderness, and finally arrive at home in the Promised Land, where Immanuel is.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is closely associated with Passover (and even referred to as Passover, e.g. Deut. 16:1-7), and shows that this great Sacrifice would be our only source of nourishment and strength. He would be crushed as grain (see John 12:23-24), but would arise as the firstfruits from the dead, thus guaranteeing the resurrection of all his people (e.g. 1 Cor. 15:20-23). In him would be no leaven of sin and defilement (1 Pet. 2:22-24), and his people, therefore, who feed upon him would purge out of their own lives the old leaven of malice and deceit (1 Cor. 5:6-8; Gal. 5:9), and beware of “the leaven of the Pharisees” (doctrinal corruption – Mat. 16:5-12).

Pentecost is also called the Feast of Harvest (Ex. 23:16) or the Day of Firstfruits (Num. 28:26), pointing to the harvest of souls following Christ’s resurrection, of which the first three thousand on the Day of Pentecost were the firstfruits. In the Feast of Pentecost, we see the great results of the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread, and especially of the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits on its second day: for after that first sheaf of Passover, there would be another offering of firstfruits at Pentecost, the first loaves of bread baked from that first grain. This Feast was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost following Christ’s ascension (see Acts 2:1 – “fully come…”), when God truly formed a new loaf – a people consecrated to him and anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit, who had partaken of the firstfruits of Christ crucified, and were thus one with him, and in union with him became a new community, just as crushed grain is molded together to form one loaf (Acts 2; 1 Cor. 10:16-17). The theme of firstfruits (or the firstborn, both of which belong especially to God) as being fulfilled initially in Christ and then in his people is common throughout the NT (see 1 Cor. 15: 20-23; Col. 1:15, 18; Rev. 1:5; Acts 26:23. Rom. 11:16; 16:5; Heb. 12:23; James 1:18; Rev. 14:4. cf. also Rom. 8:23).

3. Second Cycle: Feasts of the Autumn

General Character of the Seventh Month

The seventh month of the Ecclesiastical Year was the most sacred of all the months. While the festivals of the Spring focused on God’s work of redemption from Egypt and the time in the wilderness, the festivals of the Autumn focused on the rest which God accomplished for his people, bringing them into the promised land. Of course this rest on the seventh month, which Joshua brought the people into, was not the true rest of God, which was actually won by the better Joshua, our Savior (see Heb. 3-4). The festivals of the seventh month emphasize the effects brought about by the work of redemption accomplished in the first month; God’s redemption through Christ brought about a new era, a brand new year of God’s eternal favor, and hence, not only is this month the seventh (ecclesiastical) month of completion and rest, but also the first (civil) month of an new epoch that will never end.

Feast of Trumpets

The Feast of Trumpets celebrated the New Year with trumpet blasts.

The Day of Atonement

The holiest and most solemn day of the year, providing the clearest and most detailed picture of Christ’s accomplishment on Calvary that the Jews ever had. Discussed in much greater length in Lev. 16.

The Feast of Booths

The Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles was the culminating and most joyful feast of the year, prepared for by the Day of Atonement. On the first day, a “holy assembly,” the people would rejoice and dwell in booths made with palm branches. On the “last, great day of the feast,” the eighth day, they would observe another “holy assembly” with a joyful celebration that brought an end to the festal year.

Meaning of the Feasts of Autumn

The Feast of Trumpets looks ahead to the ringing cry of jubilation that, because of the redemption that God has accomplished (the feasts of the Spring), there is now a new year of his favor (Is. 61:1-2; cf. 58:1). The messengers of the good news, who spread the knowledge of this new, eternal year across the world, fulfill the meaning of the trumpet blasts. Cf. the other great “trumpet-blast” announcements of redemption: the resurrection of sleeping saints, that the kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of Christ, etc. (Mat. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:51; 1 Thes. 4:16; Rev. 11:15).

The Day of Atonement is a rich and beautiful representation of Good Friday, which we already looked at in detail previously, and will thus skip over today.

The Feast of Booths brought the whole festal cycle to a close, and showcased “the end of the story” of God’s redemptive accomplishment. In the Paradise of Eden, man and woman dwelt with God in a beautiful Garden, and were full of joy and peace. Now, because of what God has done in Christ to bring them back, a whole people, whom he has redeemed, dwell together among fruitful branches, filled with great joy. These booths represent how God’s people left Egypt to dwell in booths in the wilderness; but they also look ahead to when God will “tabernacle” among his people forever. Even in our present journey through the wilderness, we have Christ tabernacling among us, reminding us of when we will dwell with him in the new earth, where he himself will be our temple. Thus, the Feast of Booths looks back to when God tabernacled among men (when the Christ took on human flesh); it looks to the present where Christ dwells within us as we journey through this wilderness with joy and hope; and it looks to the future, when we will all live forever with Immanuel, who has finally and unceasingly tabernacled among us. This future-looking orientation is prominent, however, and thus the Feast (and the whole festal year) closes with a last holy assembly on the eighth day, looking to the new and endless age of eternal favor in the presence of God (cf. Zech 14:16ff).

The Feast of Booths is also called the Feast of Ingathering (Ex. 23:16; 34:22); this reveals another symbolic meaning of the Feast: it represented that, in consequence of Christ’s work on the cross (the Day of Atonement), the nations would be gathered in to the people of God.

In Jesus’ day, there were two elaborate ceremonies on “the last, great day of the Feast”: a Temple-lighting ceremony, which symbolized that when the Messiah came he would shed light from the temple throughout the world; and a water-pouring ceremony, which symbolized that the Messiah would pour out the life-giving Spirit when he came, in fulfillment of Isa. 12:3. Jesus clearly implied that these ceremonies were being fulfilled in him, when he attended the Feast of Tabernacles (Jn 7:37-39; 8:12ff).

The Jewish Festal Calendar

1—NISAN 

Spring Equinox, end of March or beginning of April. 

Day 1. New Moon.

Day 14. The preparation for the Passover and the Paschal Sacrifice. 

Day 15. First Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. 

Day 16. Waving of the first ripe Omer.

Day 21. Close of the Passover.

2—
IVAR
Day 1. New Moon. 

Day 15. ‘Second,’ or ‘little’ Passover. 

Day 18. Lag-le-Omer, or the 33rd day in Omer, i.e. from the presentation of the first ripe sheaf offered on the 2nd day of the Passover, or the 15th of Nisan.

3—SIVAN 

Day 1. New Moon. 

Day 6. Feast of Pentecost, or of Weeks? weeks, or 50 days after the beginning of the Passover, when the two loaves of first ripe wheat were ‘waved,’ commemorative also of the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai.

4—THAMUS 

Day 1. New Moon. 

Day 17. Fast; taking of Jerusalem on the 9th by Nebuchadnezzar (and on the 17th by Titus). If the 17th occur on a Sabbath, the Fast is kept on the day following.

5—AB 

Day 1. New Moon. 

Day 9. Fast—(threefold) destruction of the Temple.

6—ELUL 

Day 1. New Moon.

7—TISHRI 

Beginning of Civil Year 

Day 1 &2. New Year’s Feast. 

Day 3. Fast for the murder of Gedaliah. 

Day 10. Day of Atonement; Great Fast. 

Day 15. Feast of Tabernacles. 

Day 21. Close of the above. 

Day 22. Octave of the Feast of Tabernacles. (In the Synagogues, on the 23rd, Feast on the annual completion of the Reading of the Law.)

8— MARCHESHVAN OR CHESHVAN 

Day 1. New Moon.

9—KISLEV 

Day 1. New Moon. 

Day 25. Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, or of Candles, lasting eight days, in remembrance of the Restoration of the Temple after the victory gained by Judas Maccabeus (BC 148) over the Syrians.

10—TEBATH 

Day 1. New Moon. 

Day 10. Fast on account of the Siege of Jerusalem.

11—SHEBAT 

Day 1. New Moon.

12—ADAR* 

Day 1. New Moon. 

Day 13. Fast of Esther. If it fall on a Sabbath, kept on the Thursday preceding. 

Day 14. Purim, or Feast of Haman. 

Day 15. Purim Proper.

  • The Megillath Taanith (‘roll of fasts’), probably the oldest Aramean post-biblical record preserved (though containing later admixtures), enumerates thirty-five days in the year when fasting, and mostly also public mourning, are not allowed. One of these is the day of Herod’s death! This interesting historical relic has been critically examined of late by such writers as Derenbourg and Gratz. After their exile the ten tribes, or at least their descendants, seem to have dated from that event (696 BC). This appears from inscriptions on tombstones of the Crimean Jews, who have been shown to have descended from the ten tribes. (Comp. Davidson in Kitto’s Cycl. iii. 1173.)

[Taken from Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services]

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